A Process Note
By Farid Matuk
Yulia’s painting reminded me a voice can be contained or let lose, and either action can be for the benefit of oneself or of others. I recalled a story the poet Duriel Harris shared at a conference in which a voice of intuition guided her to a defensive stance on a train platform that would protect her from the assault of a man that in fact occurred moments later. I’d been keeping notes of things my daughter said for some time as part of a running series of sonnets addressed to her. Boxes can and can’t contain what’s always exceeded the lie of being singular or self-possessed.
The Voice
Artwork courtesy of Yuliya Lanina.
you said let’s make like a girl mean something amazing commercial
flickered in that dead patch today is where I saw
the cardinal’s glow you wanted to see
me go first you say to use a pleasure in seeing me
“walk behind this man” the voice said to Duriel so she could live
on the train platform soft and touched come to see the suds in the sink
lighting on workmen’s calls and some of the Buddhist advice
bends air before breaking it
birds and kids thread air into each other chiasticly
it’s not a word but a pressure to impose to feel the shape you’re in
tell me what to see when you can it’s a false spring after two days of rain
you splashed in little verbs if any come to use us loud handclap teeth suck
letting us run a voice’s grain its facts go in boxes whose faces we etch each shave a gain
Farid Matuk is the author of This Isa Nice Neighborhood (Letter Machine Editions, 2010) and of several chapbooks including, mostly recently, My Daughter La Chola (Ahsahta Press, 2013). He serves on the editorial team at Fence magazine, on the board of the conference Thinking Its Presence: Race & Creative Writing, and he teaches on the MFA faculty at the University of Arizona.